Wilborn Nobles III

Student. Freelance Writer and Online Producer

Baton Rouge, La.

Wilborn Nobles III

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It had been years since Wilborn Nobles visited the Lower Ninth Ward home where his mother drowned after Hurricane Katrina. If it had not been for a disagreement with my mother on that Friday night in August, perhaps my body would be resting in a coffin beside hers at Mount Olivet Cemetery in New Orleans.

Bonita Billups surrounded herself with lifelong friends at a white-cloth-covered table packed with bottles of champagne on ice. It was the first Thursday of July at the corner of 12th and U streets NW. Club music filled the air as patrons packed the lounge’s bar and patio, embracing each other like family members.

The sounds of bagpipes filled the air Sunday as people carried roses along a cobblestone path toward the black marble wall. Among them was Denise Reed, wearing a button with a photo of her father, Army Sgt. Harold B. Reed, who died in Vietnam when Denise was 6 years old. Reed joined dozens of now-grown children who traveled from across the nation to Washington over the weekend to pay their respects to the fathers they lost during the Vietnam War.

Some kids spend their summer hanging by the pool. Others study up to solve the diversity problem in America’s tech industry. Across the country, summer programs are aimed at addressing a “pipeline problem” in science, technology, and math, encouraging students from underrepresented backgrounds –- African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans –- into pursuing careers in those fields.

A District man was arrested in the shooting death of a friend whose body was found last month in a burning trash bin in a Northeast alley, D.C. officials said Wednesday. Zacchaeus Blanding, 19, of Northeast Washington was arrested Wednesday and charged with second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Heineken McNeil, 19, also of Northeast Washington, Mayor Muriel E.

A Takoma Park police officer was indicted on charges of first- and second-degree assault and use of a handgun after a road-rage incident in July 2014, officials from the Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Office said. Officer Travis Ala was driving on Route 50 westbound July 6 when he encountered a car in the left lane, officials said.

Teddy Schwalm found himself nearly two-dozen feet underwater, trying to steer a mini submarine inside an enormous indoor pool. But the 15-year-old was having trouble keeping his feet on the pedals that powered the submarine, and he started to loose control of the contraption. Sockets popped out of panels, an alarm started blaring, and rescue divers jumped in and hauled him back to the pool’s edge.

What happens to a city’s journalism—the actual news coverage, not the pensions of the reporters—when its flagship newsroom sinks? If we’re talking about New Orleans, where the much-honored and much-loved Times-Picayune has ceded its daily presence, the answer appears to….

The chief operating officer of Twitter announced his resignation on Thursday -- with a tweet. The company said Ali Rowghani stepped down as COO, but would remain with the company "as a strategic advisor to the CEO," according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In his tweet, however, Rowghani seems to be announcing his departure from Twitter.

GoPro is snapping promising shots of stock market action. Shares in the popular action camera company soared over 30 percent in its first day of trading as a public corporation on the Nasdaq exchange Thursday. The stock began trading at its IPO price of $28.65 and rose above $33, valuing the company at about $4 billion.